It’s hard to believe, but my 10-week internship at Brokaw is coming to an end. Now, I’m equipped with some serious digital analytics skills, I’ve written actual social content for clients, and I’ve gotten to present to a room full of Brokaw employees – twice. It’s been a ton of learning and doing work in a short timeframe, and I’ve loved each and every glorious second. (Even the crazy week of data pulling where I thought my eyeballs finally gave in.)

The experience was awesome, but the people have been even better. The CPD team is a fun-tastic family, and I’m so glad I could learn from all of them. I want to give a brief thanks to each teammate because they made my internship so great:

Kelly – Thanks for proofing my intern blogs every week and letting me write on different social outlets. (I definitely showed my parents – at least they acted impressed.) Also, you have great advice on a multitude of subjects, and you’re the best writer I know.

Snjezana – You rock. Thanks for showing me the ropes on different things, letting me sit at your desk, and making jokes during the vendor calls. It’s been so fun working with you and talking about silly stuff, the invoices – not so fun. But I’d do them anytime you ask!

Krista – First, you’re a phenomenal cook/baker. That needed to be said. Second, thanks for being so nice to me, buying me coffee and lunch, taking me to the Pandora party, and making me go home even when I didn’t want to. You’re the coolest mom I know, and I’ve learned a lot from you and your media/life/foodie wisdom. “It’s all about the negosh.”

Jack –I can’t thank you enough for sharing your genius digital analytics skills with me and teaching me everything you did in the last 10 weeks. Thanks for putting up with my mistakes and tolerating my frequent question asking. (And filling out my internship form so I can graduate.) It’s been fun learning from you. I’m hoping one day I’ll have like 20% of the knowledge you have about digital. You’re the real MVP.

To everyone else I’ve gotten to speak to/work with/learn from, you’ve been amazing! I’ve loved working with you all, playing on your volleyball team, and just experiencing Brokaw life. The end is always bittersweet, but at least it’s going out with a bang (Thanks Brokaw Brothers for the Trolliday!) I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me beyond this internship – I have a feeling it’s going to be awesome. Thank you for everything Brokaw!

Dove, a brand known for their positive portrayal of women, is calling out media outlets for criticizing female athlete’s looks—just in time for the 2016 summer Olympics. The “My Beauty, My Say” campaign hopes to change the media’s focus from appearance to performance arguing, “When they [the media] only see an athlete’s looks, they don’t see her at all.” Dove shares real-time quotes on social media, sportscasts, and magazines by popular media entities like TMZ and Bleacher Report, and offers viewers a chance to respond to these quotes. They range from discussing a female athlete’s “frizzy hair” to saying a female athlete is “built like a fire hydrant.”

Some may believe critiquing athlete’s looks or attire is just part of being in the public eye, but where do we draw the line? Since April 1, 2016 there have been 86.5 million comments about female athlete’s appearance according to http://www.dovehaveyoursay.com. Instead of focusing on their athletic performance, here’s the breakdown of what’s being discussed:

Clothes: 11%

Body: 26%

Age: 6%

Beauty: 50%

Hair: 7%

When 50% of the discussion surrounding female athletes is solely focused on their appearance, it’s time for a change. A woman’s level of attractiveness or appearance has no bearing on her abilities as an athlete. By focusing on her beauty or body, the media takes away from her hard work and abilities as a professional athlete. Dove put the ball in our court (pun intended), bringing attention to the current offensive approach to women’s athletic coverage, to drive change. It’s time to take the shot: http://www.dovehaveyoursay.com

Selena Gomez is 24 years old and a single post from this former Disney star is worth more than most people make in a year, two years, three years… A single promoted post from her is worth $550,000, which tops the list of all celebrities – including the Kardashian/Jenner clan. This value is based off D’Marie Group’s algorithm that takes into consideration 56 metrics. These include: followers, post frequency, engagement, post quality, click through and potential to create sales. So although Gomez is not guaranteed to make half a million dollars on every sponsored post, she essentially could use that as a starting point for negotiations.

You’re probably asking yourself, how can a social media post be worth so much money? (Or if you’re me, how can MY posts be worth even 1/100th of that?) There are several factors to Selena Gomez’s monetary value. First, she has 200 million followers on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook who are actively engaging on her accounts. (Not to mention on average, 200,000 more join them every day, increasing the total number of her followers daily.) Brands will pay big bucks to have their product placed in front of that many people – especially if they’re conditioned to engage with the content that typically is pushed out from the page. According to AdWeek, users trust influencers as much as their friends, and around 40% say they have purchased something because they saw an influencer using it. These influencers are seen as real people, and their fans trust them, even if they’re being paid to promote a product. The relationship social media creates between influencers and their followers makes every suggestion feel personal, so if Selena Gomez says to buy a product, her fanbase is likely to do so.

Gomez isn’t involved in many brand partnerships. She’s (or at least her management is) selective about what brands she endorses. Right now that includes Coca-Cola, Pantene, and Kmart. Her feed isn’t diluted with promoted posts. According to D’Marie Group a post by Selena Gomez, or supermodel (and Kardashian) Kendall Jenner, will produce 12x the return on investment compared to standard digital marketing efforts.

Here are a few other top celebrity endorsers on social media:

Kendall Jenner: $125,000 – $300,000 per post

Cara Delevigne: $125,000 – $300,000 per post

Taylor Swift: $125,000 – $300,000 per post

Gigi Hadid: $125,000 – $300,000 per post

Scott Disick: $15,000 – $20,000 per post

Kim Kardashian: $20,000 per tweet

Khloe Kardashian: $13,000 per tweet

Ashley Benson: $5,200 per tweet

Did anyone else die a little inside after that? If you need me, I’ll be working on my Instagram.

As millennials, we’re expected to be the all-knowers of the digital world. We’re on the pulse of social media, and we’re expected to keep up with the downloads and be down with the uploads. It’s pretty crazy – no wonder those Boomers would rather us do it. As tail end millennials and Gen Z-ers are becoming old enough to enter the workforce, it’s easy to see that many of us have difficulties with social etiquette.

For starters, a lot of younger folks struggle with giving away all the information they possibly can share about themselves online. (We’ve all been guilty of it one time or another.) Being comfortable with yourself is a great quality, but it’s important to keep some personal things off the web. My simple test is: Is it something your future employers or grandparents would want to know about you? If the answer is no, don’t tweet about it. I’m glad you’re having a great time on Saturday at 3:17AM, but alerting everyone online that you’re blacked out and can’t find your shirt is not the best call. That’s a story to tell where no one can screenshot it – like in person.

It always makes me laugh when people say “I post what I want, it won’t stop me from getting a job!” I’ve talked to a plethora of employers, and every one of them goes to the fabulous tool we know and love: Google. It takes 2 seconds to type in your name and find out everything about you online. If you don’t have a personal page, odds are your Twitter or Facebook will be the first thing to come up. If it’s not protected, keep it PG-13 – use the employer/grandparents test if you’re not sure. It’s only going to get worse as tech savvy people step into positions of power. No one finds online information faster than millennials with a bone to pick; imagine one as your boss.

So the lesson learned is to be responsible, but that doesn’t mean you have to act like a robot. It’s good to add some personal flair to your social media pages and show people you are a real human. Let people see that you coach basketball in your free time and you love sharing pictures of your dog. Just don’t share everything because “Revealing too much leaves you with nothing.”

The people have spoken and Snapchat has listened. If you’re on social media, you’ve seen the conversation—Snapchat users wishing to rewatch stories and see images past their current disposable nature. The popular messaging app’s newest update will allow for just that. Users can save photos and videos to a newly launched “Memories” page on their app. They can choose to keep images to view later, resend an image or video, and even edit captions.

Snapchat also installed the ability to photo search for simple terms in the images within Memories. If you take a video of your dog, simply type in “dog,” and all those adorable images will pop right up. (If only Apple had that capability…)

Memories will show users data they’ve saved from the past, much like the TimeHop app. Any images users put into their Memories folder will show up on the app on the same date in the future. This “blast from the past” idea has been a well-liked update to Facebook as well. Even better, users can combine their stories to make one long video to share. A lifelong friend’s birthday roast seems like the perfect use for this feature.

Snapchat is consistently improving it’s offerings, giving more incentive for users to stay within their app longer, or for light users like me to get on more often. Snapchat is even growing rapidly among users over age 35. The continued improvements to the application will allow Snapchat to see user growth and soon, Snapchat might be the next Facebook contender. Stay tuned…

I’m sitting here trying to think of something to write about for this week’s blog, but one of Krista’s cupcakes is staring me in the face. By the way, it’s 10 minutes after 9:00AM. Cupcakes for breakfast – booyah! It’s so pretty. I think I’ll eat it and think about this blog a bit more.

The cupcake was delicious. (Krista – thanks for baking cupcakes; Jack – thanks for having a birthday so Krista could bake cupcakes, and Happy Birthday!) Good news, I thought of a topic for this week’s blog: company culture.

Who says cupcakes aren’t brain food? Just like a delicious cupcake, it takes the right ingredients, time and work to develop awesome company culture. It’s so important to have a great team with a common goal and Brokaw has a great recipe: do what’s best for the business and our clients. In addition to this common goal, coworkers should be collaborative, positive, supportive, and of course, fun. When you spend 40+ hours a week with your coworkers, you want to truly enjoy their company.

I’ve only been at Brokaw for four weeks, but in that time I’ve been able to see how awesome the Brokaw culture is. If you want great company culture like Brokaw’s, you should simply follow this recipe:

1 cup of Intelligence: Brokaw employees are extremely smart. They’re witty and creative. It’s hard to imagine an ad agency without those traits, but Brokaw’s employees are the next level of intelligent. You have to be smart enough to know how to rise above the blah, blah, blah before you actually can.

3 tbsp. of Positivity: Brokaw’s employees radiate positivity. They smile constantly. During Jayme’s intern-view, she said, “Think about what you want to bring about.” It’s a great quote to live and work by.

8 oz. of Teamwork: If someone needs help, there’s always someone who has his or her back. I’ve witnessed this firsthand with the CPD team. There might be a deadline or an overwhelming amount of work, but someone is always willing to lend a hand. There is no job too little or too small for a Brokaw employee.

1 can of Whoop-Ass: When times get tough, Brokaw is tougher. The industry can be difficult but together; Brokaw keeps the positivity going and always ends up coming back stronger, ready to work towards the next goal or challenge.

½ cup of Hard Work: Everyone at Brokaw is team oriented, but they are self-motivated as well. Everything (and I mean everything) will get done, even if it takes staying at the office late or coming in early. Nobody at Brokaw is afraid of work. Or fun…

1 bag of Fun: If there’s one thing Brokaw employees know, it’s how work hard and play harder. The workday is full of people joking and laughing, or pulling pranks on each other or sharing a beer after a long week of meetings. This says a lot about this agency and the people they hire.

Mix these together and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees, and you’ll get the perfect Brokaw culture. But for your own sake, please do not ingest.

This week, history was made in the Land. The Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Championship, ending Cleveland’s 52-year drought and bringing happiness, glory, and 1.3 million people to our city on the lake. I was lucky enough to see the excitement of game seven firsthand. When the buzzer went off in the fourth quarter, the city exploded. It was louder and more intense than anything I’ve ever witnessed: screams, tears, drinks flying, hugging, dancing, shirts waving, and high fives all around. As I walked from my viewing spot to Quicken Loans Arena, chants of “Let’s Go Cavs!” echoed across the streets. This was only the beginning.

On Wednesday, Cleveland hosted the championship parade. The scene downtown during game seven was nothing compared to the parade and rally—bringing an estimated 1.3 million people to a city with a population around 300,000. With fans swarming the streets and blocking the parade routes it took more than five hours for the team to make it through a one-mile parade route to the rally zone near the Convention Center. Confetti sprinkled the famous Cleveland skyline and people scaled buildings and sat outside windows stories high just to get a glimpse of our championship team. It was an extreme outpouring of love for them and the city of Cleveland.

You might be wondering what this has to do with advertising. Cleveland fans spend days allowing this team in their living rooms, bars and restaurants. They watched the team evolve with LeBron, without LeBron, and were there with tears and celebrations for “the return.” As a city, they got so close to the championship they could finally taste it. Their faith was tested. And this week, they rejoiced in celebration after emotionally counting down the minutes waiting for them to succeed or fail during sixteen long games. It’s a great story. It’s a Cleveland story.

And storytelling is essential to advertising. There are many forms of storytelling, but the Cleveland Cavaliers perfectly followed the narrative of The Hero’s Journey. Quickly, the Hero’s Journey begins in the ordinary world with a “call to adventure” (enter the NBA, win your hometown that championship.) What follows is the hero’s “refusal of the call” (I’m taking my talents to South Beach) and eventually a “meeting with a mentor” (The Heat) who provides the hero with training and advice to help them on their journey. Then, they “cross the threshold” (welcome home LeBron) and “find allies and enemies” (love and hate in Cleveland fans). They “prepare for the ordeal” (…twice) and finally take possession of the treasure! (2016 Champions!) The “road back” (flight home from California with Cleveland’s most prized-possession) and the “resurrection” (a moment of rebirth, once again the King of CLE.) Finally, “the return” (not that one), where the hero returns home and has the power to transform the world as we know it (1.3 million people waiting to see LeBron, his team and our trophy.)

1.3 million people arrived to celebrate with this team because they’ve been a part of their story; they’ve watched the 2016 NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers brand be built—52 years in the making. They care.

We’ve entered the era of consumer empowerment. Brands need to do more than communicate outwardly to their audience. They need to tell stories, entertain, educate, inspire and touch lives.

The Cavaliers team does an exemplary job at delivering what the audience wants. They give us a great product to watch on the court but extend the story off the court as well. By utilizing social media we have an opportunity to be a part of their lives both on the court and at home. They’ve shown us the celebrations, created inside jokes with us (Lil’ Kev), and let us see the world from their perspective. We get to experience this story through the players’ eyes.

Our involvement allows this Hero’s Journey to resonate with us deeper than most. We’ve invested ourselves in this team, and it’s become a part of us. We felt the anguish watching the buzzer slowly count down, we crowded the streets in celebration as the team flooded the court, and we cried with JR as he gave a heartfelt speech about playing for his family. The emotional rollercoaster is what connects us with this team, and motivates us for the future.

The Cavaliers team has told its story. Through them, we’re encouraged empower ourselves and write our own story. It’s our call to action – show that no matter our struggles, Cleveland is a success story. How will you respond?

This week has been extremely busy and very interesting. When I wasn’t researching possible target markets or where and when it’s acceptable to use profanity in an ad, I was investigating guerrilla advertising. If you aren’t familiar with this term, do yourself a favor and go to this website:

My personal favorite is the “Need A New Barbeque” ad. Using something simple, like a run-off grate, and transforming it into a barbeque is genius. A run-off grate is something that we all see, and are located almost everywhere. They are so common; we often don’t even notice them. Transforming the grate into a BBQ with a spatula grabs the attention of passerbys in high-traffic environments, giving Vijay Sales the awareness they’re seeking.

I love guerrilla advertising because it offers new, creative ways for an audience to experience a brand. If done right, it creates awesome buzz, contributing to the volume of the conversation surrounding the brand through word of mouth, social sharing, public relations attention and more. Plus, it’s exciting and fresher than that prince from Bel Air.

It’s my first week interning (ever), and my brain is so full of analytical knowledge. When I shut my eyes, it’s like the matrix code on repeat. Just kidding, but really, I’ve never crunched so many numbers. Even though my brain has processed so much information, digital analytics is still fun. I’ve learned so much about different analytics resources and how to use them. Reporting data is neat because I can tell a story with numbers. (Phrase credit to Jack.)

In addition to analytics, I’ve gotten to sit in on several meetings and learn about Brokaw’s clients and do some media research. Overall, I’ve been enjoying it, but my favorite part of working here is the people. Everyone is so nice and fun, and extremely helpful. I’m learning from everyone, and it’s great.

Since moving to Cleveland and starting my internship, these are the top lessons I’ve learned: